Peter

I am writing a book of fine literature and I am calling it, “At Last Shirked.”Naw, too derivative.  I’ll pretend I am from the most northern province of The British Empire, Canada and call it, “Atlas Sherked” after contributor William. Naw . . . . I don’t want to upset The Crown but our William is fair game.

William, People Magazine had an interesting article about the next British monarch and his wife who will be queen when Elizabeth steps down, if she ever does. Perhaps when she needs to walk with a cane Elizabeth will finally pass on the royal scepter. I can see the headline, “The Commoner Who Will Be Queen: King Charles and Queen Camilla.”

Or if Charles decides to not accept, or Camilla is too old to do her royal duties, or when Charles abdicates, etc., it will go to Prince William and Kate. King William and Queen Katherine has a certain ring too and I bet a few Brits are looking forward to some younger royals. I know the paparazzi are. In the meantime, To the Queen. Hoist a pint! May Elizabeth rule until her one hundredth birthday or longer. She has been married to Prince Philip since 1947, and he is still driving a car but be wary around the old gentleman.   

Palm trees. Hawaiian like nights. I can dig it. Though I do appreciate Air conditioning. Here it is going to be in the 90's for a few days with high humidity. Last night it was 77 with 96 percent humidity around 10pm and it felt like 100. I Cranked the AC down to 62 and slept with a sheet and two light blankets. Around 3 I must have pulled a quilt over me but by 4am I remember pulling it off and sweating between my . . . er. forget that. 

Here is a stupefying question. Could, would humans prefer living without heat or AC? I could live without heat, and dress like a Brit, and have a goose down bed with quilts, but I would hate living without AC. This message was brought to you by Trogolytes United.  

Wilhelm asked, "What are your best tools, dear reader?"

Basic plus I.Q. A desire to know., a desire to make people laugh, a need to see humanity succeed, and a desire to avoid all loss of human life to achieve those goals. 

I haven't been following this thread but Mr. Trump lost because he distanced himself from the Republican Party and spoke disparagingly of Cruz and Rubio. If he had only had those two and Paul Ryan really working for him during the campaign, he might have picked up enough electoral votes to win. Now we have two more years of economic stagnation under Clinton, with a possibility of four more years after that. On the positive side we have eliminated North Korea with a mere 70 atomic bombs and we no longer need to prop up Israel. It was good of Hillary Clinton's ICE to allow a million Israeli's to immigrate to America but there are still quite a few living in concentration camps in Palestine. Let's hope for the best.  

Well said William. I have never had a blog or a web site but you seem to be doing prittie good.

I hope Alex Trebeck beats his cancer. My brother died from the same thing, pancreatic cancer, a few years ago. 

2 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

Ok, good. No more cough medicine now, and go take a nap.

That’s the best you got? So, you want to be grossed out? Close your eyes and imagine the following experiences after each suggestion. The idea of eating eel or (fill in the blanks) grosses me out. But I love fried soft shell crab sandwiches, and scrapple perhaps from living on the Eastern Shore. So, do we Amurican’s eat odd food? From my GPS tracker on the internet, here is what grosses out people from other countries. Olive loaf. Jello salad. Chicken and waffles. Grits. Green bean casserole. A donut burger.  "Rocky Mountain oysters: If you can't call something what it actually is (testicles), maybe we shouldn't be eating it." Chicken gizzards. Pickled pigs feet. Deep fried butter balls.

But in the uncivilized world they eat, fried brain sandwich, Escamole: Ant larvae harvested from the roots of the agave plan. Bird’s Nest Soup. Cow’s stomach tacos in Mexico, Cuy or guinea pig in Peru, goats intestines called Buchada in Brazil, bull’s testicles called criadillas in Argentina, live dancing shrimp called goong in Thailand, Kiviak or dead birds stuffed into a dead seal in Greenland, snake soup in China, sheep’s head called Smalahove in Norway. In New Guinea they used to eat humans. 

And Star Trek’s Worf eats gagh which are serpentine worms Klingons prefer to eat live as they try to crawl out of their bowls and then out of their bowels, and you chase it with a slug of blood wine, but don't mix it with whatever you are having. 

Oh. I get it. But nope, not a drop to drink. Are we messing up Wilhelm's site? I hope not. The lack of infrequent typos is the internet proof of sobriety. Well shucks, you ARE smart enough to have a sense of humor. The OL bylines say no name calling and any comedic references to a frequent contributor must be humorous.

“Well in that case by golly,” and “Watch your step, Buster,” (he said in his best imitation of Jim Carey) I remember the uproar when the 1969 movie “Krakatoa: East of Java” came out. It starred Maximilian Schell, Rossano Brazi, Sal Mineo, Diane Baker, Brian Keith and with “Little Jon” as his son. No one except “Lil Jon” (as he was known on the set) knew the startling secret about the film but he just had to go ahead and blab to a tabloid “The Hollywood Insider.”

During filming but only after he had received his first pay check, he told the reporter: “Krakatoa was actually west of Java!” “Neither the director or producers would listen to him during filming,” he confided between sobs. When the news came out the film lost all chances for an Oscar for direction and “special effects,” and Mao banned it in China for being “lying propaganda from the Imperialist West” and he said it was in no way as good as the movie “The King and I” etcetera, etcetera, etcetera . . . .       

Well, he is a Billy Goat. I rarely visit Der Billy's Rhineland, because of all the free gruff and TV dinners, that draws crowds.

59 minutes ago, Jon Letendre said:

We can see what Peter is working with, yet even he does not believe the stupidest conspiracy theory ever.

Unless of course Billy no longer believes.

He refuses to say.

I coulda been a comedy writer for Jerry Seinfeld I tells ya. "His mudder was a mudder" coulda been thunk of by me. The dark side of the moon is an alien base is the stupid-i-est conspiracy ever, disproved by the first trip around da moon. Gotcha.

"Friends and foes" is a logical fallacy. You can't be a friend and a foe at the same time. "Friends or foes" makes more sense. And I wish people would stop saying, "Cat got your tongue." There has been no recorded instance of a cat biting a tongue out of somebodies mouth. Everybody knows when you say "cat" you are just talking about a "house cat" and not a lion or a tiger. And I wish people would stop saying, "for instance" and "in an instant." It's just crazy talk. 

Ringo Starr is 78 and set to go on a world tour. He is worth $350 million bucks and still married to Barbara Bach, the lucky man.

From The LA Times. Ringo Starr is gearing up for a big year in 2019, including a new book and his 30th anniversary world tour with his All Starr Band. The tour will kick off March 21 at Harrah’s Resort Southern California in Valley Center. It will be followed by a nine-show leg in Japan, followed by a return to North America. Other confirmed dates include an Aug. 1 concert at Caesar's in Windsor, Canada, followed by Aug. 3 and 4 double bills with the Beach Boys at Ravinia, outside Chicago, and Aug. 7 and 8 performances at the Ryman Theater in Nashville. The tour will conclude Sept. 1 at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, nearly 30 years to the day when Starr’s first edition of his All Starr Band completed its debut concert trek on Sept. 3, 1989.

From Wikipedia: Starr was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to music. He was knighted in an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace by Prince William, duke of Cambridge on 20 March 2018.

I really miss this guy but I guess he did a lot of puzzles before he died so his widow could “carry on” the tradition. I started around dinner time and I just finished it. This Sunday Crossword by the late Merle Reagle is titled “Light Opera.”

Clue: “Der Ring des Nibelungen” translated: Answer: I want a donut.

Clue: “Tristen and Isolde” translated: Answer: I used to sell nasal spray.

Clue: “Der Rosenkavalier” translated: Answer: The cowboy is Jewish.

Clue: “Parsifal” translated: Answer: You dropped your garnish.

Clue: “Die Gotterdammerung” translated: Answer: Who broke the ladder?

Clue: “Die Fledermaus” translated: Answer: Your Disneyland balloon is losing air.

Some history William? Ellen knows stuff.

From: Ellen Stuttle To: atlantis Subject: ATL: RE: Rodin and Rand Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 23:33:44 -0400 Bill Dwyer writes:  I'm left wondering whether Mary Ann Sures consulted Rand before venturing forth with an opinion on this. Had Sures' impression been different from Rand's, I'm sure her article never would have been published.

Roger replied, "I don't understand how your final two sentences relate, Bill. Since the article ~was~ published, their impressions ~were~ the same."

Bill replies: I meant, I wondered if she consulted Rand to determine Rand's views before deciding what to write....Sures was an Objectivist in good standing, and could easily have feared the wrath of Rand if she expressed a contrary view.  It is a sure bet that if she wanted to get her article published, her opinions had to conform.

The likely way that article got written is this... Once upon a time, there was a split between AR and Nathaniel Branden, in the summer of '68.  Meanwhile *The Objectivist* was months behind publication schedule.  When publication of the magazine resumed in

September, the issue # was Volume 7, Number 5 -- that is, the issue for May.  There then proceeded to be a race to catch up with schedule, and Rand basically *told* various of her associates:  "Write something on such and such topic."  It wasn't a question of her associates "wanting" to get an article published, but of their being enlisted to save the ship by getting the magazine caught up.  They were back on a timely schedule by January '69.  However, the articles except those by Rand herself and by Peikoff continued to be for the most part a "filler" type of article.  From what I was told by some of those who wrote articles during that time, Rand "heavily edited" their contributions.

One article went so far as to include outright falsehood, the article by Allan Blumenthal on "The Base of Objectivist Psychotherapy," in which he says, "(I am indebted to Ayn Rand for the definition of psycho-epistemology, and for the conception and development of this method of treatment.)" Ellen S

Hey. it worked. I typed in Windows and cut and pasted here without melting my computer! I liked these quotes the best. [WSS added: Dozens arrested after climate protest blocks five London bridges ]

Quote

The move is part of a campaign of mass civil disobedience organised by a new group, Extinction Rebellion, which wants to force governments to treat the threats of climate breakdown and extinction as a crisis. “The ‘social contract’ has been broken … [and] it is therefore not only our right but our moral duty to bypass the government’s inaction and flagrant dereliction of duty and to rebel to defend life itself,” said Gail Bradbrook, one of the organisers . . . . In a letter published in the Guardian they said: “While our academic perspectives and expertise may differ, we are united on this one point: we will not tolerate the failure of this or any other government to take robust and emergency action in respect of the worsening ecological crisis. The science is clear, the facts are incontrovertible, and it is unconscionable to us that our children and grandchildren should have to bear the terrifying brunt of an unprecedented disaster of our own making.”

Soooo. It sounds like a Monty Python sketch. They want a totalitarian dictatorship to save us from ourselves? The billions of humans we keep adding to the planet every generation who use fossil fuels to survive is bad?  Kind of like a comet coming to hit the earth? But guys! Have a heart or more accurately have a brain. Look for real evidence of global catastrophe. If people are thriving and reproducing . . . . As Carl Sagan so wisely did not say, “Camp fires are not destroying the planet.” Peter

Don't build at the beach. Don't build on a cliff. Don't build where wild fires happen. Don't put a Qwicky Mart in a ghetto.  Don't build on a filled in swamp or basin in case an earthquake occurs. Sheesh. Do we always need to be evolutionary? But then again, evolution won't happen if we save idiots from their mistakes.  Oh, oh. Starting to sound all Eugenic-kee.

On ‎9‎/‎29‎/‎2017 at 10:05 AM, BaalChatzaf said:

The man is an idiot.

I came across an interesting mash up. "Flag and Cross." Will we return to the Dark Ages or The Crusades, brothers and sisters?

D'Souza was on Laura Ingrahm tonight. The Show, I mean.

In your long description of yourself, you forgot to list your recurring part on the TV show, "The X-Files." Was that an accident or intentional? Queue the spooky music to The Twilight Zone. 

On ‎7‎/‎17‎/‎2017 at 0:24 PM, william.scherk said:

 

If you were running for class president in High School and a teacher said to you, I hope you win because your two opponents did . . . . 

That last episode really upset me. Dexter's wife was just too fine. I wish it had been written differently. I may have more to say about that.

semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

“Dexter” is a Showtime cable network show about a serial killer who has a job as a forensic technician specializing in blood spatters. He has a “Code,” taught to him by his father and mentor, a police officer for the Miami police department . . . Dexter will only torture and kill a killer who has escaped the legal system. He hides his true nature from everyone except a few select, and understanding people.

Wouldn’t this be a great acting role for our fearless leader, Barack Obama? His mentors are William Ayres and Sol Lowinsky. His “Code” is Marxism and Totalitarianism barely hidden from patriotic Americans. He is killing us softly with inspirational blather, and someday he will reveal himself to everyone.

“Good morning Mr. President. How may I be of service to you today?”

“Leon, you are the head of the CIA and my ears around the world. This is for your eyes only. The next time we torture a terrorist I want to be there.”

“We don’t torture misguided Islamic nationalists any more, Mr. President.”

“Yeah, sure. There are some Americans who need it too. The next time we do it, I want to participate. I can’t ask anyone to do what I won’t do myself.”

“Well, of course, Barack. If you insist. Amnesty for everyone involved?”

“Yeah. You bet, Panetta. Let’s see. There’s that Glenn Beck guy, and Limbaugh. Definitely domestic terrorists. We’ll start with them. I’ll bring my own South Side of Chicago tools. Damn, it’s been too long. Let there be blood!”

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor